.




The Philosopher spoke in Greek, and wrote it in Greek, and after he died, at least some portion of what he had written was translated into Latin, some of it surviving for multiple millennia in those forms, until such time as it was then translated into English for us moderns to appreciate, if we have the common sense to do so.  

What did he say, and what did he write?  

The Philosopher[/i]]

All men by nature desire to know.              

With this one sentence, he opens his great work with a nuclear weapon in the realm of thought.  

All men!  What a 'sweeping statement'!  What about WOMEN?!?!  

In two words he puts to rest the nattering nabobs of feminist negativity, for all women are included in the term "all men," which is a universal term, grammatically.  You see, the problem is, feminists deny at least by implication and association, the very first things of thought and reason by refusing to believe God's revelation, and they make a false god of their 'reason' (which is really pride and obstinacy under the form of Modernism).  See Romans cap. i.

Further along, "by nature" puts to rest the wormwood corruption of the devil by identifying the natural state of man's existence, the UNIVERSAL common ground of all men, for all time.  Man is the same today as he was in ancient Greece, even while the silly 'evolutionists' are wont to preach their Modernism with their own flavor label.  Man cannot deny his own nature.  It is a state of being in which he finds himself, and is 'by his very nature' unable to escape it.  (The 'evolutionists' are wont to preach that man's desire to 'become' a new species would one fine day result in his 'evolving' into a 'higher being' thus giving lip service to the plethora of false religions that preach re-incarnation, nirvana, religious enlightenment, and so on.)

It is the nature of man that gives him his desire to know, and it is this desire that he has at the core of his very being, for without a desire to know, man would cease to be man.  It is a universal principle, for the life of man is directed to the end of his natural demise, the time of substantial change, when man goes to face his particular judgment and subsequently his eternity in heaven or in hell.  Ultimately, heaven is precisely a state of knowing, but it is knowing in the fullest development, for it is looking upon God with vision clear, that is, intellectual perception and true knowledge of what God is, Who God is, how God is, and where God is.  The Philosopher wastes no time in getting into the subject of man's sense of vision in regards to his desire, inclination and preferences.  Coming soon.......................

Furthermore, what does it mean, "to know?"  In those ancient times, the category of philosophy that is known as Epistemology was known to exist, and the ancients recognized its existence, but they did not spend much time, energy, resources and effort developing the field, since they recognized it as simply a foregone conclusion, that man does know things, and he has a desire to know things.

But thanks to Modernism, today we have a different problem, for the very root of thinking and of human thought is under assault.  You can see its evidence everywhere you go these days.  

.

I've missed your comments.

You flatter me.  Please,,,,,,,,,, Don't! Stop! Don't! Stop!

Don't laugh, [sorry, my bad] but objectivism [it always cracks me up when the CI system underlines "objectivism" with a red squiggle like it's misspelled or something. HAHAHAHA] epistemology laid basic groundwork for my ease in converting back to the Faith, from novus ordo to tradition.

Could have been the same for me - but I'm not so sure which came first, the chicken or the chicken-eater.  HAHAHA

I had the inestimable blessing of a mother who had been trained by nuns, the Sisters of St. Joseph.  Old doctrine never dies and the Modernists of Vat.II despite their animus dilendi, were unable to squelch the solid Catholicism of the world's convents overnight.  But her tutelage was in the late 30's and early 40's, before the devastation of the vineyard was in full 'bloom', or, should I say, " f u l l   k a - b l o o m ? "

I'm convinced that the absence of teaching objective thought processes is the lynchpin of modernist success. We Catholics know best that dispassionate analysis is necessary to reason.  But the world is awash in numbed skulls via state (and dare I say most private) schools and media/entertainment.

I think you're really touching a nerve here.

Just yesterday I had the pleasure of interacting with a retired physician during his volunteer duty at a county nature center. He was lecturing on Arthropods, using PowerPoint, a red laser pointer, and an impeccable OUTLINE stapled and passed out to the whole classroom of eager listeners. (Arthropods includes butterflies AND spiders, but his 'specialty' is butterflies.)  My several factoids regarding arachnids in various veins subtly seemed to put him off emotionally, even though he hid it well.  He seems to have an aversion to spiders but treats them in a clinical, arm's length manner.  We took a nature hike after the lecture, in a small group of 5 or 6 adults.  It was very nice.  Along the way, he enthusiastically exclaimed that the yucca tree and a particular insect have a symbiotic relationship, for the insect lays its eggs in the maturing flower of the plant, without which the eggs could not mature or hatch, and without which the yucca seeds would never mature and germinate.  Therefore, the very existence of both these insects and the yucca plants are mutually interdependent on each other.  My immediate query was as follows:  "Oh, symbiotic.  I see.  So how could they ever have EVOLVED independently?"  I said this in a soft tone such that others wouldn't hear us, and I said it quite casually, in an offhand manner.  His immediate reaction was a shrug of his shoulders, and a wave of his hands, and I timed my gentle chuckle very well, if I dare say so myself.  It was hilarious!!!!!!!!!!!!

Scientists who would seem to think so clearly about certain things have selectively agreed somehow to SWITCH OFF their thinking caps when it comes to other certain things these days, and it centers on the very existence of God and the truth of God's revelation.  Only the devil could have done this.  It is the cockle sown among the wheat.

In ancient times, aka saner times, those who developed philosophy were aware of epistemology as a category of knowledge and as a necessary increment in the field of man's thinking about thought and knowledge, but they did not develop epistemology because for them, in their saner time, it was a foregone conclusion that man's knowledge comes from outside of man, and man knows things by becoming informed of them from without.  The very notion that man's thought could be the CAUSE of reality was to them next to insanity.

There is one other thing that we find in rampant practice today which the ancients unanimously regarded as utter foolishness and recognized it as a lethal contagion to the very structure of man's thought, and that is the denial of the principle of non-contradiction.  For example, we have seen, written by the hand of a recent pope, in his "hermeneutic of continuity" (which is a lie) this very denial, that is, that a thing can both be and not be at the same time.  More specifically, that a thing can both exist in and of itself, while simultaneously its contradictory can also exist along with it.  That is, something can be true on the one hand and false on the other, and both hands can be just fine regarding the inherent contradiction.  It is a DISCONTINUITY of right reason, and therefore its title "continuity" is a lie.

We live in a time when not only we see this insanity dished out for public consumption at the highest levels, but we also have reactionary extremists coming out in growing numbers, pronouncing judgment on authority to the effect that their office would be (or so they would lead you to believe!) invalid as such, because of their malfeasance.

Not even Our Lord Jesus Christ denounced the validity of the offices held by the very men who killed Him.  

There is a thought for Lent, this year!!!!!!!!


.

.

How could I have missed this typo?  I'll repeat the first paragraph then the corrected quote box.  Following that will be new commentary. I have found this beginning salvo of the Philosopher to be well worth memorizing.




You could, perhaps, appreciate a sense of how far ahead of his time the Philosopher was, that is, if you were to study his works with a spirit of simplicity which is divorced from Modernist corruption.  But that might be well-nigh impossible unless you have been blessed with a sound formation under the guidance of a good teacher.  My own mother was just such a one, who passed on to me an awareness for simplicity in an uncorrupted sensus catholicus.

All men by nature desire to know.

An indication of this is
the delight we take in our senses;  
for even apart from their usefulness
they are loved for themselves,
and above all others the sense of sight.

For not only with a view to action, but even
when we are not going to do anything,
we prefer seeing
(one might say) to everything else.

[Note:  he did not say, "anything" else!]


The reason is that this, most of all the senses,
makes us know and brings to light
many differences between things.

It is human nature to prefer seeing, that is, the sense of sight or vision, to all other things.  In this way, a person could be confined to a hospital bed and being able to see visitors and watch TV is a great consolation, for example.  

Recently a friend of mine asked me to look for a food wholesale company whose warehouse had been located next to a particular freeway at the end of an off-ramp.  He said their name was on a sign you could read from the freeway, and he said it ended in "Turkey Company."  When I followed his direction, I found a wholesale warehouse with a name ending in "Food Company," but prominently in the center of their logo was a smiling turkey with tail feathers splayed out.  I told my friend that he must have been very impressed with the vision of that turkey because he had forgotten the word "food" and had replaced it with "turkey."  This is an example of how our vision can have an overpowering effect on our perception of reality.  This power is directly related to our natural tendency for preference for vision over all other things.  

It is our nature in no small way due to the fact of our purpose in life.  This answers the question of "Why are we here?" -- a question that some people have found very difficult to answer, but it's not difficult at all for a Catholic who understands the basics of our Faith.

Anyone calling himself "Catholic" who has a hard time answering this question needs to take a serious look at his grasp of the first things the True Faith teaches us.

Curiously, the Philosopher was not a Catholic, for there was no such thing in his day since he lived in the age before Our Lord's sojourn on earth.  Nonetheless, his teachings and life's work has been recognized by Doctors of the Church as having been a signal grace from God that prepared his culture for the acceptance of the Gospel which was soon to come.


.

Why bother to repeat a kind of knowledge ("differences between things") after having already said, "makes us know?"

Do you think the two are mutually exclusive, Neil O?  Would it be we 'know' something in and of itself, but in context of it's surroundings, or in comparison to other things, we also know the 'difference between things'?   Crude explanation, but you're smart and get the point  :dancing:

A lot could be said about this one paragraph, above.  

A lot could be thought about it too.  I read the quote and carried it with me and my pet to the veterinarian, ruminating on it the entire time.  Other than meditating on the Passion, is there anything more fulfilling than trying to understand these fundamental, deep things?  

One more question...  :ready-to-eat:
As you pointed out, I did notice Aristotle's phrasing of  "...to everything else."  vs. "... to anything else."  ?  
Why did he do so?

Thank you for your patience!

(sorry I missed your earlier response - glad the thread was resurrected)